Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan in Jema’a local government area of
Kaduna State, has blamed the killings in Southern Kaduna on Governor
Nasir El-Rufai. They accused him of taking sides with the suspected killer Fulani herdsmen.
Bishop of Kafanchan Diocese, Most Revd. Dr. Joseph Danlami Bagobiri,
said, “Governor El-Rufai has in most cases seemed to have abdicated his
responsibility of being Governor to them all, and instead gave in to the
luxury of waging an unrelenting media campaign against Southern Kaduna
people.”
Bagobiri who is also the Chairman, Southern Kaduna Christian Elders
Association, stated categorically that, “He (El-Rufai), unabashedly
takes sides with the armed herdsmen (His kinsmen) thereby failing in his
responsibility as a true statesman, becoming therefore a biased umpire
who blames and criminalizes Southern Kaduna victims as the cause of the
mayhem.”
The Catholic Bishop in a terse statement he issued on Tuesday, said,
“The sole aim of these attacks is to conquer our people and occupy their
lush lands and turning same into grazing fields for the marauding
nomads. The Governor of Kaduna State is pursuing this detestable policy
by his plan to forcefully take over lands in Southern Kaduna and turn
same to Grazing Reserves and Routes for his kinsmen.
“To show Government’s insensitivity on this volatile matter, there
are ongoing expansionist plans to annex more land to the already
existing grazing reserves at Ladduga in Ikulu Chiefdom of Zangon Kataf
Local Government area and transmute that locality from being a district
into an emirate.”
According to Bishop Bagobiri, “On 15th April 2017, at about 7:00 pm,
an attack was launched by Fulani militias in Asso village, Jema’a local
government area of Kaduna state. The attack came when the people were in
the church for Easter vigil celebration. The killers took advantage of
the event by sporadically shooting at the faithful killing at least 12
persons on the spot with many injured.
“Having presided over the mass burial of atleast 10 Catholics along
with their parish priest Revd Fr. Alexander Yayock the following day,
I’m by conscience compelled to make the following statements:
“The attitude of the state government has been marred by lots of
complicity and bias which exacerbated rather than ameliorated tensions.
The Governor has made several efforts in the media to discredit figure
of casualties that were arrived at through painstaking research, and is
known for trying to change the true narrative by presenting the victims
as the villain and the aggressors as the prey.
“The Governor has the penchance of using state apparatus to insult,
denigrate, intimidate, arrest and put in prison all voices of reason
from Southern Kaduna who dare to challenge his handling of this crisis.
Among those that have fallen victims of his tyranny are: traditional
rulers, journalists, youths, political leaders, academicians, while
threatening our lawyers and other leaders (Religious and Unions) with
arrest for daring to speak out against the genocide.
“The primary responsibility of government as enshrined in the
constitution is the protection of life and property of citizens
irrespective of ethnic and/or religious persuasion. Any breach of this
fundamental principle of social contract contravenes the very reason for
which Government exist for.
“Unfortunately, our government both at the Federal and State levels
have failed woefully in this regard because of their inability to rise
above ethnic and religious bias. If anything, government has shown
outright partisanship in favor of the herdsmen to the disappointment of
the majority Southern Kaduna indigenes.
“Because of government’s inability to serve as an un-biased umpire in
the face of these crises, we are sometimes tempted to belief that there
is a well-planned Jihad against the people of Southern Kaduna, and
Christians generally in Northern Nigeria as this is amply demonstrated
by the incessant attacks and atrocities committed against the aborigines
of the Middle Belt region in Northern Nigeria.
“The killings continue unabatedly in fields and bushes, thereby
preventing farmers from visiting and cultivating their lands. This is
happening today as the Military and other security forces mount road
blocks in towns and major roads while bushes remain un-safe for farming.
“In the Godogodo and Pasakori attacks in Jemaá Local government area
for example, the military merely watched and supervised the killings and
burning of homes on the pretext that their mandate did not include
fighting the herdsmen.
“When the youth mobilized themselves to repel the attackers, the
soldiers deliberately blocked them from entering the town. The herdsmen
and their collaborators turned the towns into killing fields and killed
mostly women, children and the elderly who couldn’t run for cover.
“The level of barbarity was such that pregnant women got their wombs
blown out and massacred before their children. And these innocent
children were not spared either. This level of viciousness was never
witnessed even in the brutal tyranny and regime of Adolf Hitler.
“What is most intriguing is the level of sophistication of weapons;
Ak 47, Machine Guns and many other deadly instruments of death are being
freely used by the herdsmen, leaving wondering how these weapons got to
their hands.
“The governor has described the Fulanis as vindictive and un-forgiven
people. This may simply be the projection of the Governor’s own mindset
to an entire people. Our experience living with Fulanis for decades
does not prove this. The indigenous communities of Southern Kaduna have
been living peacefully with the Fulani herdsmen who came to join them as
neighbors until the architects of the view that the average Fulani man
is vindictive and un-forgiving came into power.
“The mayhem and killing with impunity in Southern Kaduna and the
Middle Belt region and beyond by the Fulani herdsmen, using
sophisticated weapons is a recent development fueled by this kind of
philosophy. To present any person or group of persons as revengeful and
to go ahead to support and sponsor a praxis of retaliation as we are
witnessing in Kaduna State today, is not only a detestable behavior but
an evil mentality that will not engender social cohesion and harmonious
coexistence in a plural and heterogeneous setting such as ours.
“The natives and herdsmen of Southern Kaduna have always had their
differences as is common in herdsmen and farmers relationship everywhere
in the world. These differences sometime end up in clashes and
skirmishes resulting from invasion of each other spaces, but such
differences have assumed an un-precedent height under the current
government with the use of very sophisticated weapons of destruction.
“What we are witnessing in Kaduna state is not the so called
un-forgiving spirit of the Fulani people towards others, but the
transfer of a hate mentality from a handful of people in leadership
within the State to an entire ethnic group, with disastrous
consequences. All humans are created by God with rationality and the
milk of human kindness in their hearts. This often shows itself in love
expressed in mercy, compassion and forgiveness. No rational human person
is created without the disposition to overlook some offences committed
against him or her. Only those with dead consciences are indisposed to
show compassion and forgiveness. A world that does not forgive is doom
to fail. An eye for an eye philosophy renders the whole world blind it
is said. Describing an entire people as un-forgiven is not a plus but a
minus for such people.
“If the Fulanis stop the aggression in Southern Kaduna today, there
will be peace in the environment and the entire State. The
non-retaliation of Christians to great abuses and violations of their
human rights is termed as weakness, which is not correct. God has put
the feeling of mercy and compassion in each of us regardless of our
ethnicity and religious affiliations.
“If the Southern Kaduna had been trouble shooting people, they too
would have established militia groups and go on rampage in domains other
than their own. But alas this is not what is happening. They are being
attacked in their sleep and places of worship right in the land that
divine providence has given as their own. And even at that, they are
told not to defend themselves in the face of aggression.
“The earlier we rediscover this truth of conscience (that all
rational beings are imbued with a spirit of mercy and compassion) and
begin to live this truth to the full, the better for our Society.
Therefore the promotion of the philosophy that any offence committed is
like a debt that must be avenged for either now or in the future is not
only false and un-wholesome but it is the figment and projection of the
personal idiosyncrasies of a few but powerful people. This mindset if
not checked and corrected has the potential to erode the fabric of any
social organization.
“The killings with impunity in Southern Kaduna must not be allowed to
continue. And Government in the State has a special and irreplaceable
role in bringing this scourge to an end. The current Government in the
State must follow the example of past Governments by initiating measures
that would unify rather than divide the people of the State on ethnic
and religious lines as this Government has been doing since its
inception.
“We have had our challenges on harmonious coexistence in the past.
But past Governments demonstrated statesmanship in Governance by
bringing stake holders across board to parley on how to resolve our
indifference. The current administration in the State seems to dread
this kind of interface which had proven to be effective in the past.
“Government must change its attitude from alignment with people of
one ethno-religious group in the State, she must resist the temptation
of acting as the mouthpiece of one group against others and begin to
display true statesmanship in seeing and treating the entire state as
its constituency.
“The current Government got it all wrong right from the beginning
when it openly stated that she will treat the citizens of the State not
on the merits of their being Kaduna state indigenes but on the basis of
who voted and who did not vote for the party that won the election. This
is a wrong premise to operate under a democracy such as ours, which
promotes and respects diversity particularly on political matters. We
cannot all become members of one Party in Kaduna state. It is
unfortunate that this kind of segregational mindset seems to be
teleguiding government’s policies, utterances, appointments, and the
distribution of infrastructure for development and social initiatives.
“This Government has taken discrimination on religious and ethnic
lines to a height that has never been witnessed in the history of
Kaduna. Today we are left with a situation where there is much
concentration of development in the North and Central Senatorial
districts to the utter neglect of the Southern Senatorial District which
is predominantly Christian. The Northern part of the State monopolizes
the Executive, the legislative, the Judiciary and occupies all slots of
federal appointments such as the ministerial and those of parastatals.
“This disgusting mentality of premeditated discrimination and
marginalization is shown by the lopsidedness in both political
appointments, locations of infrastructural facilities, and worst still
the delineations of political constituencies and polling units which
institutionalizes rigging at source. While the Hausa/Fulani dominated
areas in Kaduna State have cornered over 48 Federal Institutions to
their domain, southern Kaduna can hardly boast of one of such
institutions in her domain. Instead of the current government to work
towards redressing this disturbing, inhuman and unjust imbalance, she is
rather shamelessly contemplating the removal of the Kaduna State
University (KASU) Campus and the College of Education (COE) from
Southern Kaduna to his Fulani dominated space. What a shame and a slap
to justice, fairness and objectivity in dealing with people.
“In all these we have watched with pains and patience for about two
years now how government in the State is being managed as a personal
estate in a way that excludes many stake holders from the State. We want
to state emphatically that Kaduna State is for all of us, regardless of
political, ethnic and religious affiliations.
“The Governor should stop running it as his personal establishment.
Kaduna State is the only State that we can call our own. And because
Kaduna State is our State, we are contributing significantly for its
progress not only on the Spiritual level, but also our works in the
areas of education, medi-care, social upliftment and building of
capacities of the people cannot be ignored. Government must recognize us
as equal stake holders in the management and running of the affairs of
the State. We do not accept being treated as aliens in our State.
“Despite these imbalances in our nation and in our State, here we are
again celebrating another feast of the resurrection of Christ. The fact
of our Lord’s resurrection revolutionized the lives of the Disciples of
Christ. It transformed them from being a timid and sometimes a
seemingly clueless group of disciple, to a fearless and courageous team
that turned Jerusalem at some point upside down. Our faith therefore in
the risen Christ must so influenced and transformed our lives as it did
to the lives of the Disciples of Christ particularly at the times of
persecution such as we are facing.
“The injustices in our Society notwithstanding, we exhort believers
not to be fainthearted but courageous in facing the challenges of our
time. We are to renew our faith and commitment to the living and
resurrected Jesus, who triumphed over death and evil as the way to
surmounting all the abuses and discrimination that we suffer in Nigeria
today”, the Catholic Bishop said.